


No One Ever Talks About This Awkward Part

by Reb_Yell



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22983919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reb_Yell/pseuds/Reb_Yell
Summary: A slightly strange response to all those "sex pollen" trope fics I've read over the years. What really happens when Dick gets a good dose of a Poison Ivy special?
Kudos: 28





	No One Ever Talks About This Awkward Part

The run-in with Poison Ivy should have ended the night, Bruce knew that. He’d tried ordering Dick home, but Nightwing refused to cut short a patrol that had suddenly become very busy with what looked like an attempt at starting a gang war and crime spree at once. Once the situation was subdued, they had all made their way back to the Batcave, a little bruised and battered but overall doing very well, though he noticed Dick was moving a bit awkwardly. He finished entering the relevant information into the computers, then followed his boys back into the locker room. 

“Bruce!” Tim’s voice called, and Bruce picked up his pace. “Dick’s bleeding and didn’t report it.”  
“Tattle-tale.” Dick shot back, and Bruce wondered how he’d ended up with boys who acted so much like siblings without actually being raised in the same house at the same time. 

“It needs stitches.” Tim retorted, justification clear in his tone.

“Dick, what happened?” Bruce asked, coming into the locker-room to find Dick clutching a towel over his groin and Tim clearly trying to clean up or inspect the cut on his right hip.  
“One of Ivy’s plants had thorns or something – sharp enough to catch the bi-weave just right at my hip seam. I’m fine.”  
“It’s still bleeding.” Bruce noted. “Tim, go call Alfred. He’ll want to do the stitches himself.”

“Please, Bruce, can it wait?”  
“It’s still bleeding.” He repeated. Then he took in Dick’s uncharacteristic discomfort and what he was certain was a blush. “What’s wrong?”  
“Ivy’s signature…you know, her pheromones? I think I got hit with some, maybe laced in the plant that cut me.”  
“Right.” Bruce nodded, then glanced down at where Dick was hiding his genitals, which was uncharacteristic as well. Dick wasn’t an exhibitionist in that sense, but he was never particularly modest around his male friends and family – Dick was the one most likely to just wander the lower levels in a towel or jock-strap or nothing at all. He had always been very comfortable with his body and with simple nudity in general (well, male nudity – female nudity had the same effect on Dick it did on every young man). Dick coughed, and blushed brighter. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it. It’s been like this since a few minutes after I got cut.”  
“Go in the showers and…take care of it. I’ll fill in Alfred and keep Tim outside.”  
“Thanks, Bruce.”

“Dick? Everything okay?” Bruce asked, nearly thirty minutes later when Dick still had not come out of the shower area. Tim had been sent upstairs to bed, reluctantly, but it was nearly 3 am and if any one of them wanted to get much sleep, they needed to finish up down here. There was no answer, but he could hear the shower still running – it couldn’t be very warm by this point. “Dick, I’m coming in.”

“Bruce, please.” Dick spun, turning away from him. 

“Dick, what is going on?”  
“It won’t…Bruce, it won’t stop. I can’t…and it won’t…and it hurts.”  
“You’re still feeling the effects?”  
“I took the usual antidotes, and I tried…you know.” Dick was shaking, and Bruce stuck out a hand to test the water. It was lukewarm, not cold enough to start that sort of shivering. “I can’t…I’m almost but I can’t…it hurts, Bruce.”  
“I know, kiddo, I know. Can you…turn around? Why are you shaking? Blood loss?”  
“No, it’s barely bleeding.”  
“Alfred wants to look you over.”  
“Please, not…not while I’m…give me a few more minutes, then I’ll be out either way, okay?”  
“Five minutes, precisely. Starting right now.”  
  
Dick emerged four minutes and fifty seconds later, and Bruce knew that he’d opted to switch to very cold water. It was a very obvious attempted solution, there wasn’t much warm water left anyway, and Dick was practically blue from the chill.   
“Master Dick, really.” Alfred shook his head. “Lie down, I will stitch your injury as quickly as possible and then it’s upstairs and into a warm bed. Cold showers in February after a night on patrol, you should know better.”  
“I thought it would help.”

“Did it?” Bruce asked, and Dick shot him a pathetic look before shaking his head. 

“Lie here.” Alfred indicated the usual medical table. “You’re going to have to remove the towel, Master Dick. At least enough for me to see to your injury.”  
“I’m sorry.” Dick blushed again and looked firmly away from them, but obeyed. Bruce couldn’t help looking, though he wished he could, but Dick’s erection was edging towards purple from red, leaking seminal fluid and it looked as painful as he said it was. It was also, Bruce noted, rather impressive in its erect state – he’d known from its flaccid size that it was not small (he’d have estimated just a bit over average) but apparently Dick was a grower. And he was going to stop even thinking about his son’s genitalia right now. He moved his eyes up to Dick’s face. Well, to what he could see of Dick’s face, since he was still staring at the far wall.

“It does not appear to be very deep, just enough that I think I’d like to put in stitches. Also, no patrols until the stitches come out, and you’ll have to restrict your work-outs as well given the location on your hip. Master Dick, are you listening?”  
“Mm-hm.”  
“Answer properly if you please, young sir.”  
“Yes, Alfred.”

“Very well, upstairs with you then. Into bed, I will bring up a beverage to help balance your electrolytes.”  
“Yes, Alfred.”

Bruce did some quick research through his old files, but it didn’t help. Poison Ivy’s pheromones could be potent, but not usually this long-lasting once out of her presence. On his way to his own bed, he stopped by Dick’s room. Actually, he looked in on each of his boys, an old habit first developed when Dick was very young, but he finished with Dick. He could tell immediately that Dick was not asleep. Dick usually slept in a limp sprawl, but he was practically curled up on one side facing away from the doorway and was entirely too stiff to be sleeping. 

“Dick,” Bruce paused, trying to find a gentle way of asking, “feeling any better?”  
“Fine.”  
“Since when do you lie to me, Dick?”  
“If you knew, why did you ask?”  
“I didn’t know until you lied – which you’ve always done very badly.” Bruce replied, moving around the bed. He grimaced in sympathy; Dick looked like he was in a lot of pain. He sat on the bed next to Dick. “Still the same?”  
“Bruce. It really hurts.” Dick curled into him, always the first of his boys to look for physical comfort and affection.   
“And you’ve…tried again?”  
“Yes, but it hurts to even touch it. I feel like it’s going to burst.”  
“How long has it been, Dick?”  
“What time is it?”  
“Nearly three.”  
“Four hours.”  
“Let me call Leslie,”  
“NO!” Dick practically screamed, grabbing Bruce’s arm. “God, Bruce, no. Please. I can’t…what if she comes over? She’d _examine_ it.”  
“That’s generally what doctors do. Yours would hardly be the first penis she’s ever seen, and for that matter, she’s seen you naked before, chum.” It was never pleasant, but on occasion they were injured too severely for Alfred’s talents and Leslie took over their care. On at least two occasions Bruce could immediately recall, she’d had to catheterize Dick.  
“Yeah but not…like this.”

“Dick, you have two options and only these two. I can call Leslie, or we can go to a hospital. By the time you’re treated you’ll be nearly to a six hour mark and that’s when it’s going to risk serious long-term complications.”  
“I can’t go to a hospital with this. Some paparazzi will…and it’ll be all over the news by tomorrow morning.”  
“Dick, we can’t ignore this.”  
“Call Leslie.”  
  
“You do realize of course that it is three am?”  
“It’s Dick.”  
“It must be bad if you’re calling me yourself, Bruce. How is he?”  
“Unlikely to die,” Bruce reassured her immediately, “but he’s…we had a run-in with an old plant-friendly acquaintance tonight. Dick was exposed to something, and he’s...suffering some painful side effects.”  
“Desperately in love?”  
“No.” Bruce sighed, grateful he’d stepped into the hall to call Leslie. “Whatever it is gave him an erection that hasn’t subsided in about four hours. No one else was affected, and we think it entered his bloodstream through a cut.”  
“He’s tried achieving orgasm?”  
“More than once.” Bruce replied, fighting his discomfort and trying to keep this professional and scientific.   
“He’s orgasmed more than once, or tried more than once?”

“Tried. He says he can’t…he gets close but can’t finish, and now it’s just too painful to touch.”  
“He needs intervention, Bruce. Take him to an ER-“  
“On a Friday night in Gotham? It’ll be in tomorrow’s rag-sheets before he leaves the ER,” Bruce pointed out quickly, “and setting aside the PR issue for Wayne Enterprises and for me personally if _I_ take him in like this, I really don’t want him to suffer that sort of public humiliation, do you?”  
“Right.” Leslie paused, “bring him to my clinic in the most discrete vehicle you have, and we’ll treat him there. In the meantime, put ice on the affected area to discourage more blood flow into the appendage.”  
  


Thirty minutes later, they pulled into the employees’ lot of the Thomas Wayne Clinic. It was a 24-hour clinic on the weekends, but there was still fewer staff there at this time of day. Leslie was just pulling in at the same time, as was another car. Bruce helped Dick out of the car, since between the stitches in his hip, the pain and the awkwardness of the ice packed in his groin (which Dick had not liked, though he said it eased some of the ache) Dick wasn’t moving nearly as well as usual, and didn’t bother acknowledging the woman who was holding open the door to the clinic. Leslie was already inside because Dick was moving carefully, and she was clearly getting them an open room since even this late, it was a Friday night in Gotham and the clinic still had patients. Bruce helped Dick into Room 2, as directed, and then assisted (all-but forced) Dick to undress. He couldn’t help looking down, and winced in imagined shared pain. Dick’s erection was larger, purple and swollen and visibly painful. The whole area was looking reddened, swollen, and sore, though the shaft looked very much the worst.

“Alright, let’s see what-“  
“For fucks sake!” Dick shouted, grabbing his pants and covering himself. Bruce stared, certain that he’d never actually heard that word from his son (despite knowing that at 23, Dick no doubt knew it and had done it). “Shit, you could at least introduce us before giving a full fucking viewing.”  
“Richard, keep a civil tongue in that head – I know you were raised better than that, and not just by Alfred Pennyworth.” Leslie shot back. Bruce decided to take a subtle compliment in that.

“I’m sorry, I’m not used to meeting women with my hard cock hanging out, so you’ll just have to forgive the bad manners.”  
“No, I won’t have to.” Leslie continued, since Dick’s apology had clearly been sarcastic. “ _Sit down_ and let us see what we’re dealing with.”  
“Bruce, I’m sure-“  
“Richard. Sit. Down.” Bruce commanded, and Dick sat in an instant. It was good to know that the right tone of voice still worked with him. He then turned his attention to Leslie. “I know it’s late and we’re all a little rough at the edges, but I agree with Dick – introductions might help him be a little more comfortable since all of you are about to get to know him pretty intimately.”  
“Fine. This is Dr. Rachel Lennox, she’s an urologist and a friend of mine, and that is one of our new nurses, Rosalyn Hillstrand.” Leslie pulled up a chair near the exam table Dick was sitting on. “Ladies, this usually charming young man is Richard Grayson, and the intimidating-looking over-protective paternal one is Bruce Wayne.”  
“Hi, Dr. Lennox. Miss Hillstrand. Thanks for coming out so late.” Dick actually smiled, turning on his usual charm. Bruce was amazed all over again at how genuinely pleased Dick always was to meet new people – and how quickly the boy’s mood could still change. That, or Dick was the most consummate actor Bruce had ever met. “Sorry about the…I’m a little edgy. I’ve never…I mean, you’re sort of the first women to see it who I’m not dating at the time, and Leslie’s been treating me since I was eight so…yeah, this is really embarrassing and strange.”  
“What happened?”  
“Exposure to an unknown drug at a party, right?” Leslie prompted, and Dick nodded.

“I was out at a club, and I was…uh,” Dick glanced up at Bruce, as if uncertain, “in the backroom, you know,”  
“Why do you even know what a backroom is?”  
“I’m twenty-three, Bruce, not sixteen.” Dick sounded put out, as if Bruce might have forgotten how old he was.   
“What the hell were you _doing_ in a backroom? It better not be-“ He was only half acting, wondering just what his son had been doing the times he really was in clubs for social purposes.  
“No! I was…let’s just say I was looking for someone, okay? I got cut on something sharp, and ten minutes or so later this started. It’s gotten worse as time passes.”

“Rosie, you better prep all the usual blood tests. When was your last tetanus booster, Mr. Grayson? You had this stitched?” Dr. Lennox was looking at the cut.   
“Just a few months ago for the booster, and Alfred stitched it when we thought it was just a cut and the…uh, other thing would go away. Alfred, he’s the sort of boss of Wayne Manor, he’s a medic for stuff like this.” Dick replied, looking mostly at Dr. Lennox but glancing once at Leslie.   
“We can’t usually just run to the ER, there’s…publicity concerns, much like tonight.” Bruce filled in, and Dr. Lennox seemed to believe them so far. 

“Alright, on to the main issue. How long ago did the erection start?”  
“About four hours now.”

“We’re going to have to intervene, Richard.”  
“Dick.”  
“What?”  
“Uhm…kinda awkward given…you know,” Dick was blushing even brighter, “but everyone calls me Dick, not Richard. You’re pretty much elevated past the strangers who call me ‘Richard’ by virtue of well…you know.”  
“Right, as I was saying, these are all going to sound bad but we have two things to do since we have no way of knowing how to counteract whatever chemical is doing this and not much time to wait on results given it’s 3:30 am and we don’t have a hospital lab available. Has the ice been helping?”  
“It hurts a little less but it’s not…going down at all.”  
“First, Dick, I’m going to aspirate blood from the penis, and then inject alpha-agonists to reduce blood flow into the penis. It was good that you came in, embarrassed though you may be, since if left too long priapism – the term for this condition of a prolonged erection without sexual stimuli – can result in serious complications including impotence and in some cases, the removal of the damaged tissue.”  
“You’d have to cut it off?!” Dick half-shouted, and Bruce reached out to hold his son down. He understood the panic in his voice, probably every guy could, but she was clearly not advocating that in this instance. Still, that instinctual fight-or-flight could be dangerous, especially in someone as trained (and agile) as Dick.

“Only if you let it go long enough that tissue began dying would the necrotic portions have to be removed.” Dr. Lennox assured, but she didn’t seem to even notice Dick’s sudden distress. Then again, Bruce presumed she had to talk to a lot of men about things that made them a little distressed, given her area of specialty.  
“Thirty seconds ago the idea of a needle there was terrifying. Now I say go for it.” Dick replied vehemently.  
“Perspective can be a wonderful thing.” Dr. Lennox smiled, and Dick did too. Bruce was just grateful that some of his son’s usually affable nature was showing through. 

“I’ll numb it, then begin aspiration.”

“Just the numbing sounds good right now. Sorry to be crude, but I thought blue balls was bad but this…it’s a solid five.”  
“Which means it’s a seven or eight for anyone else, Rachel.” Leslie explained. “I’ve heard this young man describe badly broken bones as a three, and when he was shot he apparently told the doctors it was a four or five.”

“Well, they said a ten would be the worst pain you can imagine. I have a very vivid imagination.” Dick was smiling still, though it was a bit tight, probably from the pain.

“I see. Okay, well, we’ll see how it feels after the treatment before we worry about pain management.”  
“I never thought I’d say this after I got out of Ms. Henckley’s ninth grade advanced algebra class but _please_ just make it soft again.”

“We will.”

“Miss Henckley? I don’t remember her.” Bruce remarked, hoping to keep Dick at least a little distracted from the preparations to stick multiple needles into his erection. 

“You missed teacher conferences that year. You sent Alfred. She was beautiful – great figure, smart, amazing legs, and gorgeous red hair. It wasn’t even like she dressed in anything revealing, I’d just…in the middle of class.”  
“That’s not all that unusual for a boy that age,” Dr. Lennox stated. “First shot, Dick, just to start numbing the region – that should alleviate some of the pain.”  
“Yeah,” Dick nodded, then grabbed Bruce’s forearm hard enough it might bruise, and abortively brought his legs up to his chest – the boy was professionally bendy, after all. “oh, shit! That hurt, it really hurt.”  
“Dick, you can’t curl up like that. I can’t work unless you stay still.”  
“Sorry, it just _really_ hurts.”  
“No doubt.” Dr. Lennox agreed, “Dick, is your erection usually this size and color?”  
“God, no. I mean…it’s…I haven’t exactly measured it tonight but it looks bigger, in length and girth, and it’s never been this dark a color, and the…the head just feels…weird, different, like it’s not hard but obviously, the whole thing is hard.”  
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to measure both length and girth quickly, for records I keep just to establish statistics for cases and treatments.” Dr. Lennox continued, “it also nicely fills the time while the numbing takes effect before beginning aspiration.”  
“Go ahead just be uh, gentle?”  
A few minutes later, and Bruce determinedly did not watch even a medical professional measuring his son’s penis, and Dr. Lennox spoke again. 

“Dick, I know this really awkward, but I promise you that penises to me are like feet to a podiatrist – I see a whole bunch of them daily. So, right now, before aspiration, you’re measuring at just less than 8.4 inches long and 7.5 inches around at the shaft and about the same at the glans. How much extra swelling is that?”  
“Questions you never thought you’d answer, and definitely not with your dad pretty much holding your hand.” Dick shook his head, but Bruce also noticed a distinct blush to Dick’s features. “I haven’t measured lately, I mean, I did when I was a kid-“

Bruce couldn’t help a small scoff.

“Bruce! You can’t laugh at me right now!”  
“It’s just that to me, you’re always a ‘kid’, Dick.”  
“Alfred said the same thing the other day, and hey, that numbing stuff is helping. Alfred said I could be eighty and he’d still think of me as ‘young sir’. Then he got all maudlin about probably not being around when I’m eighty, because he’d be like…a hundred and twenty or something. How old _is_ Alfred, Bruce? We celebrate his birthday every year because I insist but he never tells me what birthday it is. What if I miss one of the big ones, I mean, I’ve known him so long I already have, but what if he like turns seventy and I don’t even _know_? That’s a big deal, but he says it’s not-”  
“Dick, answer Dr. Lennox’s question.”  
“Oh, right, sorry, I kinda get a bit weird on certain drugs – Leslie should’ve warned you about that. I’m not allergic I just get hyper or something on some things. Last I measured, normal is about 8-ish long and I’ve never actually, uh, measured around, but it, uh, looks bigger. I guess that explains why it feels like too much sausage in a too small casing right now.”  
“The problem is too much blood, but it’s not a bad analogy. Once I remove some of the blood, it should return to a more comfortable size.”  
“Please do.”  
“Any swelling in the testes that you’ve noticed?”  
“It’s all so sore I didn’t…they didn’t look swollen or anything but that whole area of my body was hurting so much, and it’s still pretty sore. I’m down to like a three or so.”

“Okay, Dick, I’m going to start the aspiration.” Dr. Lennox met his eyes carefully. “You may want to look away. Many men find it disconcerting, at best, to watch a needle inserted into their penis.”

“I’m fine.” Dick assured her. Bruce, though, moved to Dick’s side, putting his own back to the doctor so he was firmly in Dick’s space, and tapped Dick’s chin softly.

“Eyes on me, kiddo. You can’t flinch right now. You can’t move at all. Let’s try working on the total stillness technique.”  
“I suck at that one.” Dick complained, but he kept his eyes on Bruce’s own. “Graysons aren’t meant for stillness, Bruce. We’re movers and doers.”

“Waynes are all things, able to do and be what the situation calls for, any situation.” Bruce returned quietly. He paused, but continued, “and you’re always going to be a Grayson, Dick, I don’t want that to change, but you’re also a Wayne.”

“ ** _Gavno_** , vot eto piznets, zhizn’ ebet meya. **Srat’ tebe v rot**. Chtob tvoja mogila hujami porosla. Yob tvoyu mat. Otyebis ot menya! Yob materi vashi. Ya tibyi dam po yibalu. Rodilsya cherez jopu. U tebya cho ruki iz jopi rastut?” Bruce didn’t need to look, he could tell from Dick’s outburst and his expression that Dr. Lennox had just stuck the needle in to begin aspiration.  
“That was impressive,” Bruce remarked, but he was serious when he continued, “and if you talk like that again in front of these women, I’m going to forget you’re twenty-three not thirteen and we’ll have a very unpleasant interaction.”

“Bruce-“  
“My Russian is pretty good, kiddo.” Bruce reminded. “If you want to swear freely, do it in a language I don’t know.”  
“Russian?” The nurse asked, looking impressed. “You speak Russian?”  
“I do.” Bruce replied, his eyes still on Dick’s. “Dick is really only fluent in the worst parts of the language.”  
“Roman and Kirill taught me.” Dick was almost grinning, though Bruce could see he was still in pain. “It’s not my fault they only learned the bad words from their father. They said he wanted them to learn English only, because they were Americans now, but the best swearing was always in Russian. It does sound…I don’t know, angrier.”

“Who were Roman and Kirill?” Leslie asked, probably just to keep Dick’s mind at least partly off what was being done.

“Kirill was our strongman at Haly’s. Roman was, is, his older brother. Kirill wasn’t very smart, I guess. No one ever talked about any sort of accident or anything, but Kirill wasn’t really able to take care of himself, I guess.” Dick shrugged. “So Roman was always around, he had to sign all the contracts and everything for Kirill, and Pop hired him officially as the guy in charge of the roustabouts.”  
“I’m just about done, Dick.” Dr. Lennox informed him. She paused a moment, and Bruce could actually see Dick hold back another burst of cursing, before she announced, “and that’s done, and with the meds on-board, we shouldn’t need to do it again. Dr. Thompkins, do you have an ultrasound?”  
“We do. A couple, in fact.”  
“I’d like to make sure that blood flow is easing, can you bring one into the room here?”  
“Absolutely.”  
“You’re gonna ultrasound my…seriously?” Dick chuckled. “I’m not pregnant, I promise.”  
“It’s a pretty painless and reliable way to check blood flow. For now, try to relax. Keep your blood pressure and heart rate low.”  
“So, when is it actually gonna…go down?”  
“That depends on the cause of the priapism. If it’s caused by whatever substance you ingested, as it seems, that will likely be about the half-life of the drug.”

“When can I…you know, go home? Or at least put on pants? This is really awkward.”

“Once I determine that you’re recovering, you can go home.”

Dick sighed heavily. “Somehow, no one ever talks about this awkward part when they talk about being able to keep it up for a long time. Not the least bit sexy.”

Dr. Lennox laughed, and agreed with him, “and now you understand why after this many years doing what I do, I can literally say your penis is just a fascinating case to me.”


End file.
